Hail To The Thief
by g1rl-anachr0n1sm
Summary: Despite the many obvious differences between the two, L couldn't help but keep comparing Kira and the Hydrangea Murderer to one another. He did suppose, though, that chasing either a supernatural killer or a gruesomely artistic serial murderer were both singular experiences. (sooper cool mystery based upon titular Radiohead album, periphery LxOC)
1. Prologue

_"This how-to stuff isn't in any history book."_

-The Narrator, _Fight Club_

* * *

"What the hell." Light murmured, sticking his hand into his bag once more, searching around, just in case he'd missed it the last eighty times he'd checked. But no, the result remained the same. It still wasn't there.

He'd left the Death Note at home.

He allowed himself one more curse, muttered under his breath so the teacher couldn't hear (even though he'd said it in English so it wouldn't really have mattered if people heard it anyway), and instead pulled out his school notebook, trying not to go over the innumerable disasters that might happen should the Note be discovered.  
Awhile ago, Ryuk was making fun of him for being too paranoid when he installed the 'security system' around the Note, and almost convinced Light of that as well. Now he felt that the extra measures that he'd taken weren't for naught.

At the very least, he could rub it in Ryuk's face that he wasn't just being a paranoid schizo about it.

Light sighed and composed himself, taking another glance to see that the teacher was now prattling on about the next test on the American Civil War or something. How boring. Without the Note to pass the time, this was going to be a very long day. He drummed his fingers on the table with one hand, resting his chin in the other.  
_Just keep talking,_ he said to himself. _This shit isn't useful to us, anyway. Why don't we teach kids about the Note instead? Ulysses has got nothing on Death._

One thing he _did_ have in replacement for the Note, though, was a random list of scrawled names that he would have written down officially in the Note today, had he, you know, actually had the stupid thing with him. On the corner of the paper, a blossom of a coffee stain obscured part of the first name, and Light sighed internally. The guy was only a petty criminal somewhere in Denmark or Sweden or wherever- not a huge loss in the grand scheme of things for now, but he was a chance finding on some foreign website, and would take an eternity to find again. Who knew what he would be able to get up to in that amount of time (however long that may be)?

The only letter that wasn't smeared to oblivion was the capital letter 'K', followed by what could have been an 'a.'

For no reason at all, Light was reminded of the Swedish kid detective, Kalle Blomkvist. Of course, that was probably a coincidence. There couldn't be too many Kalles out there.

* * *

**So obviously, this prologue doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the story as a whole and is rather boring. I just wanted to start somewhere where people knew what was going on- you know, Light, Death Note, high school, etc- before suddenly throwing a whole new made up plot in all your faces, and I guess I wanted to see if anybody liked my third-person writing style (yeah, confession: any fanfiction or otherwise I've ever written before has been in first person- and always from the POV of the somehow-mandatory OC. Hey, I was 12. I lacked judgment).**

**Uhm... the best way to describe this story would be a multi-chaptered, serial murder mystery taking many cues from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Psych, Sherlock, and Radiohead. If you couldn't already tell from the title of the story, yeah, this was based around the Radiohead album ****_Hail To The Thief _****because I lack original ideas for titles of stories. This doesn't at all mean you have to listen to Radiohead to understand/like the story, but it does offer an explanation for the murders if you know what all the respective songs are about.  
**


	2. 2 Plus 2 Is 5 (The Lukewarm)

**Is it bad that all I really want from life right now is a $20 Gameboy Advance so I can play Castlevania? No. Seriously. Aside from the Diana+ Meg camera, that is the only thing that can make me happy right now.**

**...That, and maybe a review or two? :D *gets hit in the face with a brick thrown from the audience***

**Aw.**

**(P.S. my entire life is run by bands and electronics. Someone help me.)**

* * *

"Jesus _Christ._"

Matsuda blanched and nearly dropped his notebook when he saw the body. He took a step back, stomach lurching, and was only stopped by the burst of static in his right ear.

"Matsuda, please focus." L said through the earpiece, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Matsuda could be so squeamish sometimes.

"I'm sorry, L! It's just-" Matsuda pressed the earpiece against his head and tried not to gag, having nearly run into the corpse's hanging feet. "If you could see what I'm seeing right now-"

"Well. Take those pictures I asked you to take, and I will be. And make it fast." L interrupted, growing impatient. Since Matsuda was one of the only task force members without a family, he had been the only option for this preliminary investigation, which had just been sent in. On a Monday. At four o' clock in the fucking morning.

L knew there was a reason why he hated anonymous tips.

And naturally, Matsuda had been more than happy to conduct the 'investigation' (standard protocol required L to call it as such, though it was more of an unauthorized look-see than anything else), until he actually saw what he was supposed to be composing a report on.

"O-okay." Matsuda said, producing from his pocket an ancient Blackberry, snapping pictures of the body with shaking hands. He hoped they wouldn't come out too blurry.

The victim's name was Mikael Lestrade, a long retired Norwegian schoolteacher who had just bought the apartment that Matsuda was currently standing in, probably looking forward to a restful holiday in Japan. Well. Let's all take notes on how that turned out for him.

Matsuda pressed 'send' on the file that contained all the pictures, and opened a word file, where he hesitantly started typing out the description.

_Mikael Lestrade, 71, hung in apartment (5 knots in noose)_

Normally, when things were written down, it helped Matsuda feel a lot more detached towards the whole thing. Just names and ages and causes of death on paper. But this time, Matsuda still felt sick. He could see Mikael, even when he wasn't really looking at the corpse. Sure, there wasn't any blood, but there were clear, reddish-purple marks around the circumference of his neck. It _looked_ like a clean death, but it wasn't slow, nor painless for poor Mr. Lestrade.

Matsuda looked up, around the room, and his eyes fell on the huge graffiti that now took up half of the back wall- '2+2=5.'

He wondered what that meant, or if it had anything to do with the case, but snapped a photo anyway and sent it to L. Then, with bile rising in the back of his throat, Matsuda took several close ups of Mikael, of the marks on his neck, and of his torso and legs just in case L picked anything up there. You could never really tell with him- he'd once heard L say that he could identify a software salesman by his tie and an airplane pilot by his left thumb. It was probably true.

Meanwhile, L sat squatting in his chair with a strawberry cheesecake at his side, scrolling boredly through the pictures Matsuda had sent him. Almost instantly, he saw a small white piece of paper tucked into the collar of Mikael's shirt.

"Matsuda." he said. "I think we're done here, after you get that note the murderer left for us in Mr. Lestrade's shirt."

"Wha-" Matsuda stared at Mikael's shirt collar- sure enough, there was a small scrap of paper nestled snugly between his collarbone and the checked fabric of his shirt. How had he missed that?' "You sure? I mean, it could just be a shopping list, or-"

"Just get the fucking note." L sighed.

Nervously, Matsuda reached up and grabbed the note as quickly as he could, making as little contact with the dead body as possible. As far as unpleasant experiences would go, touching a dead body with your bare hands was probably somewhere near the top of the list...

...Right under getting chewed out by Soichiro for accidentally wiping the fingerprints off of the note before running it through diagnostics.

"God_damnit_, Matsuda." Soichiro said, pacing back and forth. "We could've had him. We could have _had_ him, if you hadn't- ugh." he rubbed his temples and stopped talking for a moment.

Matsuda's shoulders slumped and his eyes grew to the approximate size of a sad puppy's. "For what it's worth, I'm really,_ really_ sorry." he answered quietly. "God, I don't know how I could've messed up like that."

"Trust me, we're all wondering how could have _possibly_ botched this, especially with_ such_ an_ amazing_ track record." L mumbled under his breath. "Oh, well. No help in worrying about events past. Anyways, the murderer was probably too smart to leave his fingerprints on the note. I wouldn't beat myself up about it, Matsuda. You did fine."

At this, Matsuda perked up considerably. It was rare for L to complement a task force member, even rarer when that member was Matsuda.

"No," L continued. "I think we should just take a closer look at the contents of the note." he held his hand out to Soichiro, who pulled the note out of a plastic baggie (which was a futile attempt to keep the now-nonexistent fingerprints from wiping off).

"It's actually not much of a note." he said. "It's just a number and one sentence. No clue what it means."

"Hmmm." L mused, turning the note over in his hands. "_1969. Remember me?_"

He turned to the others, as if looking for confirmation, or any ideas about what it could mean. Matsuda shrugged. Soichiro shook his head.

"Well." L started pacing the room, staring determinedly at the paper. "It could, very possibly, be a birth date. Did Lestrade have any family?"

"No, he didn't." Matsuda said. "Single man, lived alone, parents died at 18."

L rubbed his chin, feeling the prickly stubble that was his 5 o' clock shadow starting to show. "But what else could it possibly be? Oh!" he snapped his fingers and suddenly pulled his phone out, scrolling through the photos until he came across the graffiti and held it up triumphantly for everyone to see. "Of course. How could we be so stupid?"

"Uhm, L." Matsuda stared uncertainly at the picture. "I'm not following."

"Numbers, dates, graduation dates." L muttered, now walking around the room at a furious pace, before sitting back down in his trademark crouch. "Lestrade was a teacher. A math teacher. Numbers, equations, charts. Those were his thing. Yes._ Yes!_" he jabbed a victorious finger into the air.

Calmly, Watari wheeled in a cart full of sweets, took one glance at Soichiro and Matsuda's confused faces, and left without a word.

"Soichiro, I need you to find what school he taught at in Norway, and which students he was teaching in 1969. Names, addresses, current status, everything." L said, frantically stirring a mountain of sugar into his fresh cup of coffee. "Actually, just the names. I know someone who can take care of the last two things a fair bit faster."

Soichiro almost forgot to be offended, what with the sudden torrent of words that had been aimed his way. But he nodded anyway, and booted his computer up, planning to call his wife later that night. It looked like he was going to miss dinner again.

Pity; they were going to have pasta tonight.

-.-.-

To say that L and Watari got a few strange looks at the airport would be a bit of an understatement.  
Normally, Watari would have ignored the baleful, judging stares, but by the way L's shoulders slumped, he could tell that he was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.

"This is my grandson, Jason." Watari said happily to the coffee shop employee, clamping a protective hand over L's shoulders. "We're just on our way over to England, to visit his fiancee."

If they hadn't been in a public place in that moment, L wouldn't have hesitated in delivering a roundhouse kick straight to Watari's jaw. Instead, he settled for lightly jabbing one of his pressure points and excusing himself to use the restroom.

Sitting, for once, normally on top of the toilet seat, L dangled his cell phone lazily next to his ear as he waited for the call to get through. The ringing soon stopped abruptly, followed by a vague shuffling and a low, scratchy, "Yeah?"

"Hello, stranger."

The other end of the line groaned. "The worst part about that is that you actually think you're being original. What is it?" Despite himself, L smirked. Xenos must have been hungover. She sounded even more grouchy than normal.

"Nothing, really; just giving you fair warning for tomorrow." L responded coolly.

In Manchester, Xenos shook her head, frustrated, and ran one hand through her shaggy blue hair. "What, is Armageddon coming tomorrow or something?"

"I have a job for you." Even through the staticky, low-quality phone line, Xenos could practically hear him smirking.

"Dammit, L, I don't want to play detective with you anymore. Remember what happened last time?"  
L allowed himself to heave a small sigh. He knew this would come up. "That was in Budapest, and that was one time."

"Ah-_huh_._ One time_. That nearly got me deported to fucking Siberia!" Xenos yelled into the phone, almost ready to slam it back down on the receiver. If anything like a 6-figure sum wasn't mentioned, she was hanging up.

"Alright, so I may have slipped up somewhere." L admitted. "But you can't deny that you need the money."

Xenos's ears perked up. "Money? How much?"

"Oh, enough to cover, say, a few years' worth of rent in a highrise in downtown Manchester." If L were more expressive, he would almost definitely grinning like a regular Cheshire cat. "Also, I think this will be a case that interests you."

"Better not be all that Kira bullshit everyone keeps going on about." Xenos muttered. "We should all just stop freaking out. Let the devil sort 'im out."

"No, it isn't the Kira case I'm calling you about- though, you could be of some use to use there." L reassured her, assuming his normal crouching position on the toilet seat. "It's a whole new case. Only one murder so far, but I get the feeling that there'll be others."

"Oh." Xenos said, sounding disinterested. "Just a casual stabbing? How boring. Okay, L, bye-bye-"

"Wait. All I need for you to do is look at the body, tell me what you see, and then you'll be flying back to Manchester with your paycheck, okay?"

"I..." Xenos stood up and looked around her apartment, which was effectively the size of a box. Graffiti and water stains littered the walls, and the posters that covered the worst of the cracks were soggy and torn. Her bed was a thirty-year-old twin on a pallet board, and pizza boxes spilled endlessly from the ancient, humming refrigerator. The whole thing could've used some TLC. What could be so bad about spending a weekend in Japan, anyway?

"I'll do it. Just to let you know though, I won't forget to bring some insurance."

L leaned back against the wall, satisfied. "Alright. Good. Be ready to leave at exactly seven o' clock tomorrow morning."

"Hey-!"

But before Xenos could protest any more, L hung up with a self-satisfied, tiny grin. She took another look at her disaster area of an apartment.

"Asshole." she mumbled.

* * *

**Okay, so there is a bit of a punning statement L makes in here that might be kind of hard to understand without being a trivia geek- the OC's name (alias, fine) is Xenos, after the element Xenon, or, the 'stranger element.'**

**Yeah, that's basically the height of my comedic prowess. Praise me, I'm funny!**


	3. Dust To Dust (This One

**Alas, it seems that I've neglected this story for the past fortnight or so, and in my absence it has gained a few followers and favorites (much appreciated, thank you). Now before you all go 'but why haVEN'T YOU UPDATED?!1?/!111?!' I have several excuses- 1) being horrifyingly sick with the flu this past weekend to the point where I couldn't eat or drink anything without throwing up, 2) crying hysterically over MCR's breakup, 3) having a social life (read: eating pizza and watching Sherlock at my hermit's house), and 4) PewDiePie.** **Also, I made tofu stir fry earlier tonight and it didn't taste like death. Congratulate me.**

**(Chapter title taken from LeATHERMØUTH song **_**Murder Was The Case They Gave Me**_**.)**

* * *

"Fuck this shit."

Xenos awoke to harsh, short knocking on her door that echoed around the apartment. Beside her, Kelsey shifted drunkenly and hugged her from behind.

"Mooorrniiiing." she drawled. "Wassup?"

"Nothin'." Xenos said quietly. "Go back to sleep."

Taking a moment to thank God she had packed everything the night before, Xenos grabbed a spare sheet off the bed and wrapped herself up in it, hobbling towards the door at the approximate pace of a wounded snail.

"Coming, coming." she said to the door. "Lay off, L."

"Who's L?" she heard Kelsey call, but she didn't answer.

She jerked the door open with one arm and stood, glaring up at L and Watari from her tiny stature of 5'1".

"Good morning, sunshine." L said emotionlessly. "Are you wearing anything besides that God-awful sheet?"

Xenos looked down at the apparently plaid-patterned sheet she had blindly grabbed, suddenly embarrassed. "No."

"Well, we can't have that at the airport." L said. "You'd be arrested for public indecency. Go on, get dressed."

"Do you have everything you need packed?" Watari asked, following Xenos into the apartment, politely refraining from gagging on the smell of decomposing Little Caesar's pizza.

"Yeah." Xenos said. "They're by the door. You can go pick 'em up while I get dressed, 'kay?"

Xenos dug through her few remaining sets of clothes and went to the bathroom, since L was stubbornly hovering around in the other room, somehow not seeing the point of turning his back while she got dressed.

"So, who's the lucky man this time?" he said through the door, voice dripping with sarcasm. "He seems quite a bit older than you. Are you sure he doesn't have any STDs? Or a wife, maybe?"

Xenos jerked a brush through her hair and groaned, and not just because she'd just found a large tangle. "Fuck off." she said. "_Her_ name is Kelsey, and yeah, she's thirty, but no. No wife and no STDs. Sorry to disappoint you."

She emerged from the bathroom with a cosmetics bag in hand, wearing black and white striped bell bottom jeans and a t-shirt that said 'Everyone is out to get you'. Eyeliner ringed thickly around her eyes, making her look slightly panda-like, or, L supposed, a little like himself.

He stood up and applauded slowly. "At long last, the vampiress emerges from her lair."

Xenos decided it was too early in the morning to bother flipping him off and pulled on her leather jacket without a word. As they walked down the stairs, she drilled holes of undisguised annoyance into his hunched back. She considered for a minute to kick him down the stairs, but that would probably lead to some kind of lawsuit, that which she definitely didn't have the money for.

In the cab, Xenos leaned against the other side of the car in order to minimize contact with him as much as possible, and cringed when the edge of his sneaker accidentally brushed her ankle.

"No need to be like that, Xenos." L almost smiled. "I'm not coated in acid or anything. You should... how do they say it now? 'Loosen up'."

In response, Xenos glared at him and shot the volume of her headphones up so loud that the whole car could then hear Jack Off Jill spilling out of the speakers. L sighed. At least this time, it hadn't been Minor Threat that she'd been listening to. That would have been a little more difficult to handle.

-.-.-

"Alright, then. Where's the morgue?"

Xenos turned to Watari and L impatiently before the former had even finished with getting their luggage off the baggage return. Obviously, she didn't want to waste any time.

"Patience, Xenos." L said, holding a hand up. "You realize it's six in the morning here, right? Almost nothing will be open yet, let alone the morgue."

Xenos snorted. "And? Just ask security to let you in! Last I checked, you _did_ have that sort of power around here."

"It's not that simple, you know. Someone there actually has to be _awake_ in order for me to ask if we can be let in."

Watari looked at the two, sensing an argument. "We should check Xenos into the headquarters right now, actually." he looked at Xenos apologetically. "L's right. Then morgue won't be open yet, and anyway, you should probably get some rest."

Immediately, Xenos's typically angry face softened. On the rare occasion that Watari spoke, it was difficult to disobey. He was the type of person that could likely be seen as a universal father figure.

"Soooo, anyway." L began. "I suppose that would be a good idea. I could show you the profile we have of the victim so far."

"Ooh, fun." Xenos said sarcastically. "Nah, I'll look at that when I feel like it. I'm gonna sleep."

She walked ahead of them towards the bullet train, then paused. "Wait. Do you have any pictures of the body on your phone or something?"

"I do indeed. I suppose you can take a look..." L started, and Xenos snatched his phone out of his hand.

"Hmmmm..." she stared intensely at the screen, rubbing her chin with her finger. "How boring."

"What?"

"I sincerely hope that this wasn't just a city-boy suicide L, otherwise I'm gonna have to kick you. Why the hell would you bring me halfway across the world for_ this?_"

"I assure you, this is right up your incredibly morbid, twisted alley." L said, a bit defensively. "You should know I wouldn't have you do something so trivial."

"You know what? Who cares about sleep? I wanna see this guy." Xenos said.

"But Xen-" Watari tried.

"Nope. Not listening. Who cares if we have to wake the guard? He's supposed to be up, anyways. C'mon." Xenos said, running far ahead.

Then, in the distance, she yelled back. "If you don't take me now, L, I'm poisoning all your cake!"

* * *

L blanched. It was decided, then.

"Well, I can tell ya, just from looking at his face, that it wasn't a wife that killed him." Xenos said wryly.

"This is no time for ugly jokes, Xenos." L said sternly.

"No, seriously though." she answered. "He lives alone. See the traces of hair that're still on his neck, even when the rest is shaved? No one's there to tell him that it's still there. And his clothes- they're old, because the buttons are all worn out. At least five or six years old. Doesn't seem to care much about spoiling himself, either- but that's normal for a person his age. Hm."

Watari gawped at Xenos as she paced back and forth, with L smirking triumphantly.

"Also, in the picture you showed me. There were pictures. Lots of them. All with different classes that he's taught- clearly, teaching was his life. And with those little tidbits of information along with the note, we'd have to infer that one of his students that was in his class in 1969 murdered him. No motive yet, though it was probably something personal- well, obviously. A deep-set, possibly juvenile grudge. Also, it was probably done by someone creative, who apparently really likes George Orwell, or literary symbolism."

She paused and turned to L.

"Do you know if there were any scuff marks on the floor at the crime scene?"

"I don't believe so, which is strange." He answered. "The only other piece of furniture in the room was a rather heavy looking desk, which presumably was what was used to, um, boost the victim up."

"Alright, so the killer's probably a man, a strong one, who exercises a lot."

L nodded and replaced the sheet on the victim's body, folding the shirt that Xenos had examined neatly back into a Tupperware box marked 'Evidence Or Some Shit.'

"Nice work, Xenos. Your deduction skills have improved by at least 22% since Budapest. Fantastic."

Xenos stared him down across the slab for a minute, crossed her arms, and then rolled her eyes. "Oh, _please_. That's not gonna work on me. I know all your statistics are complete bullshit."

L shrugged. "I apologize. Force of habit."

* * *

**UPDATE: It is now 1 AM where I live and I'm considering finally playing Doom 3 but it's dark and it's a scary game and I'm scared. WhaddoIdo? (PS don't be a smartass and say to play Slender)**


	4. What's In The Box? (Hydrangea Headlines)

**So, if there even is a 'you guys', I bet you guys are all wondering why I essentially dropped off the face of the internet. While I'd love to say that I was kidnapped by the 9gag terrorists and escaped, Riddick-style, or something awesome like that, it's really quite pathetic.**

**Generally, after My Chemical Romance broke up I had kind of a constant Blue Screen of Death- I mean, they helped me through a lot of shit, and then they were just like 'oh we're breaking up and mikey's an ass now kthxbai', and... yeah. (What really hurts is that Mikey was my favorite u.u *sobs*) I wasn't institutionalized or anything, but basically I couldn't handle much of anything, and had to focus all my energy on clawing my way through school with a 3.5 GPA (taking an AP class wasn't really my best idea, in terms of my mental health...). *sighs* You know what, I'll just let Zak Bagans' twitter visually demonstrate my mental state for the past few months. . /tumblr_m63cfwqVaT1qdkcsao1_ **

**(I apologize in advance for any typos- since I haven't written in awhile, my typing skills have now dwindled to that of Thome Yorke.)**

* * *

_ "...According to Dante, the "lukewarm" are "the people who don't give a fuck ... The lukewarm are on the edge of the Inferno, cruising around near the gates but they can't actually get out. They're like, 'What are we doing here? We didn't do anything at all.' And in Dante's eyes it's, 'That's exactly why you're here. You did fuck all. You just let it happen.'"_

-Thom Yorke

* * *

Within a few minutes of meeting her, Light decided that Xenos was even more infuriating than L, if at all possible. Possibly, it was because of the obnoxious mop of blue hair, her general rude attitude of superiority (that was supposed to be _his _job), or any other irritating trait she possessed. But definitely not because she had immediately picked apart his chosen outfit for the day and dismissed it as 'preppy' and 'trying too hard.' Nope. Definitely not.

"Y'know, I almost thought you were mature for your age." Xenos said airily, stretching her arms and legs over the couch, much to Watari's chagrin.

Light sucked in a breath and mustered all his willpower. _Don't hit her, don't hit her... _she looked pretty weak, being rather skinny, but it didn't really matter either way, because if he did attack her he could guarantee that L would go all capoeira on his ass and he wasn't really in the mood to be humiliated today, thank you.

"It seems you don't like me all that much, Xenos." he said, forcing a smile. "Sorry if I did anything to offend you." In his experience, it was best to choke down your anger and try to be polite- if that didn't work, well, there was also the business of bullying them into submission.

"Well, yeah. I don't really like you that much." Xenos responded plainly, losing her smirk. "Unfortunately, the only thing you're offending me with is your face, which I don't really think can be fixed on site." she smiled back sarcastically, picking up on Light's forced politeness. While knowing when people didn't like you was a useful skill, it wasn't so nice when it was one of the only ones you had.

Light contemplated briefly smashing her stupid fucking blue head in with one of the glass vases on the table, but forced himself to be calm once more. His thin hands formed claws on his knees, viciously wrinkling his chinos. Any idiot could see that he was about three seconds away from going off on her, and that wouldn't be pretty.

Xenos, however, was milking his rage for all it was worth, smirking away on her designated couch. It seemed like winding people up was one of her hobbies.

"So, any anonymous tips yet, Matsuda? Leads? Clues?" Xenos asked, frowning when the constantly nervous-looking brunette shook his head. "Nothin', then. Welp. That sucks."

She slid back to her original position of slumping into the couch.

"You know, you'll be disabled before you're thirty if you keep sitting like that." L said from across the room, speaking for the first time since he had introduced Xenos to the Task Force.

"How 'bout we stop bitching about my posture and keep working on the case at hand here? Anyways, it's not like you can talk." Xenos pushed herself off the couch, flipping L off as she made her way to the row of computers. "I _refuse _to believe there isn't _something._"

"It's not that we don't have anything..." Matsuda tried. "It's just that... well, we're not sure about any of it. A lot is just guesswork based on some really cryptic evidence-"

The sharp ringing of the phone punctuated the air, silencing Matsuda as he scrambled to pick it up before it stopped. He looked at the Caller ID- it was coming from a payphone in Tokyo. No name. A small wave of nerves swept through his stomach, but he pressed the 'answer' button anyway.

Heavy breathing followed.

"I know who the murderer is."

"Um, could you specify, please?" Matsuda asked, trying to sound strict. He'd had his fair share of prank calls, and this one sounded just like one of them.

"The old man in the apartment. 2 plus 2 is 5. You know the one. I know who the murderer is, and I know why."

"You're going to have to be a lot more specific than that..." Matsuda said, preparing to hang up.

"Afraid that I can't do that. It endangers me just by calling you right now." the man on the other end of the phone- by now, Matsuda was nearly certain it was a man- began to sound increasingly panicked. "To give my name would be a death sentence. All I can say is- whatever the girl's told you, she's right."

"I..." Matsuda clutched the phone in his hand, glancing over at Xenos, who was staring back at him, looking curious.

"The class of '69? George Orwell? You're on the right path and that's all I can tell you. Mikael Lestrade was a Lukewarm. Goodbye."  
The phone clicked and then filled with static as the man hung up.

"Huh." Matsuda said. "Thank you, I guess...?"

"Tip?" Xenos asked hopefully.

"Not a very good one." Matsuda admitted. "All he said was that we were 'on the right track' and then he hung up. Too dangerous to say anymore, apparently."

"It was probably someone that knew the murderer personally." L said. "We should look through Lestrade's class records, to see if we can find anything else, alright everyone?"

"I'm going to work on the Kira case with my father." Light said abruptly, standing up and walking stiffly away.

"I think I'll... go help him." Matsuda followed quickly after Light's retreating form.

L and Xenos stared at one another over the coffee table.

"I guess it's just us, then, ol' pal." Xenos grinned sarcastically, clapping her hands together. "Alrighty. Let's get to it."

-.-.-

Xenos tentatively pulled a yellowing, cracked piece of paper out from one of the many binders scattered around the room, wincing audibly when a bit of it tore off.

"Oh, look." she said. "Flowers."

Sure enough, between the ancient pages, was a small bunch of pressed white hydrangeas, the petals feathery and dry from age.

"Interesting." L rubbed a petal between his thumb and forefinger, and it immediately crumbled away. "Sadly, this doesn't really help us with the whole murder thing, unless it was these flowers that did it."

"Either way, we should still save it," Xenos answered, slipping on a pair of Latex gloves and putting the flowers into a plastic bag. "Hey, maybe we could even call this guy the Hydrangea Murderer."

L stared at her.

"What?" she said defensively. "Those reporters are gonna need good headlines though, right?"

For a moment, L imagined a headline on the paper, in writing thick as thumbs and garishly red, 'Hydrangea Murderer Strikes Again! Will the police ever catch him?', and shuddered. Sooner or later, someone was bound to leak the case to the press, and the name seemed terribly flowery, for a person who hanged senior citizens in their apartments. _A tusssie-mussie of corpses. _Despite everything, L almost giggled to himself.

He cleared his throat and continued leafing flippantly through the scrapbook of Lestrade's class pictures, paying special attention to the classes in 1969. Obviously, the man had taught at a rather small school, seeing as he taught half of the students, the other half taken over by another teacher. That made for about 200 possible suspects, as there were 8 grades and 25 students per grade.

_Fucking fantastic, then. _he thought to himself.

Almost automatically, he began eliminating suspects. He knew almost definitely that it wasn't a girl, because Lestrade was a big man- to put it nicely- and someone with a lot of lifting power, and a rather large build was required to hang him like that. So that was 83 people gone- a good start.

He hunched over the book for an interminable amount of time, with Xenos and Watari coming and going in intervals with coffee, sweets, or sarcastic comments (no prizes to whoever guessed which one provided the last service). Actually, L hadn't really noticed either of them, until he heard a nearly inaudible intake of breath from somewhere behind him.

"What is it, Xenos?" he asked, turning to the girl behind him.

She recovered quickly and shook her head, as if ridding it of unnecessary thoughts. "Nothing. Just... just thought I saw someone familiar." she got up and left, quietly closing the door behind her.

L stared down at the sepia photographs spread before him. As if on cue, his cell phone rang in his pocket. Tiredly, he picked it up between his fingers and held it to his ear.

"What is it?"

"Um, this is the chief of police. This is Ryuzaki, right?" the voice on the other end of the line said, through bursts of static. "There's... there's been another murder, and we believe it's connected to one of your's, with Lestrade."

A wave of adrenaline shot through L and he grabbed the arm of the couch, now halfway standing. "Give me the location."

"What's happening?" he heard Xenos say, who had now reentered the room.

"We have another." he said, unable to disguise the morbid excitement in his voice. "By the way, what is a Lukewarm?"

* * *

**...But despite all the sadness above in the above A/N, I feel a lot better know, and it's summer, so only fun summer classes and my laziness to get in the way of consistent updates! Yay :D And maybe Hannibal, because that show is so addicting (if you haven't watched it, please direct yourself to a TV and do so ASAP). Related to that, my friends Erin and Aaron (called Hermit, for convenience) are having a Hannibal movie-watching party in July. *throws confetti and dismembered body parts* Yaaaay!**

**btw, the chapter title comes from a Vermillion Lies album title. It's not really well related, but I was sapped for inspiration and I wanted to get this up today.**

**PS I don't hate Light, at all. You've got to believe me. He just seems like a fun guy to wind up.**


End file.
